


Selfies

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Falling In Love, Laughter During Sex, M/M, Melbourne, Outdoor Sex, Phone Sex, Photographer John, Photographs, Selfies, missing each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5101535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock enjoy their night after work and then... go home. To their separate homes, their separate beds. It's the first night in three nights they haven't shared a bed, and already it's lonely. Thank goodness for technology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selfies

**Author's Note:**

> Remember that I post art, photos and related hipster/Melbourne/Sherlock stuff at [Captains of Johnlock](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. That's where I have posted the selfies, including the slightly naughty ones...
> 
> With many, many thanks to Atlin Merrick for assistance with source photos for the various selfies and feedback on John's self portrait.

The second night after the first _I love you_ , Sherlock and John have a beer at The Workshop Bar. Despite its size, the upstairs bar is a warren, and they cosy themselves up in one of the small booths on the far side of the bar. Fresh air wafts in through the roofless section facing Elizabeth Street, scented by the plants hanging in baskets from the bare rafters.

The music is a little too loud, so they have to crowd close to talk. This is likely the entire reason Sherlock chose this bar, though the occasional artwork and the general vibe of contradictory vastness-and-smallness have made it a place he comes to work sometimes.

They sit much closer than necessary – though each of them might argue about glib ideas of what is necessary when you’ve just found the love of your life - and talk about the way Melbourne repurposes semi industrial spaces for the food industry (the Workshop used to be a motorcycle repair shop. It has a sign downstairs that its dress code is strictly casual). John laughs about the time he saw an old coin laundry that turned out to be an _actual_ coin laundry and not a cafe using the old shop name.

They talk about how people think Afghanistan is just a desert when it’s mountains and plains and rivers and valleys and dirt and blood and smoke and fear and, very, very, very rarely, a place where some good manages to get done. John talks for the first time in a long time about some of the things he saw. Some of the things he did. Sherlock sits close, his hand on John’s knee, and listens and offers no advice or insights or judgements. He just listens and then rubs John’s knee and kisses his knuckles and says, ‘I’m so glad you’re here with me’, and John doesn’t think he’s ever felt so accepted or so in love.

They talk about London and dirt and crime and how clues are not in individual things, really, but in the juxtaposition of things. Sherlock explains that dog hair on a victim’s shirt under his jacket may not mean anything, except if he was found in the morning before he left the house and he does not own a dog. He points out that a woman wearing men’s deodorant – the scents are quite distinctive – only has real significance if it’s exactly the same scent of men’s deodorant that her junior colleague, who claims to have been home alone last night, is wearing. Not conclusions of themselves, but signposts on a path to corroborating evidence that lead to conclusions. John listens, attentive, with that light in his face that says _you’re amazing_ before he says the words themselves, and Sherlock has never felt this valued in his life, or more infused from hair-tip to toenail in love.

They don’t tell each other quite everything, yet. That will come later, and not too far away, when they think it’s important to do it. But right now, it’s all still so fresh and bright and they’ll disassemble the past to show each other, but some things feel too raw yet. They don’t want to tarnish how wonderful everything is.

So John doesn’t tell Sherlock that today, when Violet dropped four glasses in the kitchen, the shattering sound and the look of shock on Violet’s face, which he could see through the door, took him for a few seconds to that place of blood and smoke and fear. For a few seconds adrenalin sliced through his veins like a razor blade and the door was a hole and the smashing glass was bursting pottery and Violet’s face belonged to a dead woman. From time to time, even on the best of days, there are moments like this. But he’s not ready to share that yet.

And so, too, Sherlock doesn’t tell John about the messages from the Professor, peculiarly jokey and peculiarly personal and weirdly off-putting though there’s no specific threat. _Don’t you love me anymore?_ And this wasn’t hidden in the latest client’s records. This was sent to Sherlock’s tertiary inbox. (He has five main email accounts, a dozen more supporting ones. He’s cautious, and yet…. _Don’t you love me anymore?_ [No. Never did. You’re an annoying puzzle, not a perfect solution. Bored with you already. Posturing idiot].) Sherlock will deal with this idiot tomorrow; get rid of him completely. Not now, though. Sherlock’s not going to let an obsessed hacker ruin his day, or John’s.

But there’s plenty to talk about, still. They discuss whether The Toff in Town is a better venue than the Espy (always assuming there's a band worth seeing) and whether it's onion jam that makes a really good burger, or a proper smoky chipotle sauce that’s the key.

This makes them hungry. They stroll to Mr Burger on Queen Street, grab burgers and share the Cajun-salted chips and a Boylan’s soda, imported from the US. John licks dripping sauce from Sherlock’s fingers and then kisses the flavour back to him. Sherlock hand feeds John chips and kisses the salt away from his lips and fringes of his moustache.

They go to the pop-up garden, check on Sherlock’s dangerous flowerbeds and then lie on the blanket next to the planter box with a couple of cushions and make out for an hour in between Sherlock talking about bees and John making buzzing noises and giggling as he buzzes and brushes his moustache over Sherlock’s bared throat and chest. 

Sherlock protests that it tickles but all he does is take his shirt right off so John can moustache-bee-tickle his ribs and back as well. Every time John is in the right position, he licks John’s nipples to hear him moan because _that_ , ladies and gentlemen, is a sound that should be bottled. When John is not in a nipple-licking position, Sherlock kisses and sucks on whatever skin is offered him, tasting John all over. Anyone would think the pair of them were giant lollipops, the way they mouthed each other all over.

Eventually, surrounded with the scent of earth and the greenery, of concrete and cars nearby, of the Yarra and the Alexandra Gardens just below, beyond the fence of this garden above a multi-level carpark, Sherlock and John curl, sixty-nine, and can’t help giggling and panting their way through the mutual blow job. It morphs from silly-funny to _ohgodohgodohgodohgod_ and to breathless-glorious-hilarious. After, John manages to wriggle around so he’s collapsed against Sherlock’s chest – Sherlock is limp as a rag and refuses to move at all – and they keep giggling at how fantastic and funny that was.

Sherlock, kissing John’s shoulders and chest, caressing his arms and legs, tucks John’s penis back into his pants. John giggles about that until he can hardly breathe and performs the same office for Sherlock.

Seriously. Neither of them really properly understood before how excellent sex, with someone you love, can be both very profound and also giddily, joyfully, rambunctiously funny.

Holding hands, they walk back into town.

They kiss goodnight on Elizabeth Street, until the tram shows up and John gets on.

Parting is awful, worse than this morning when John left for work and Sherlock left for his flat, because then, they knew they’d be seeing each other again in an hour or two.

Sherlock walks alone to his flat in Guildford Lane. He keeps thinking of things he wanted to talk about with John. In his flat, he keeps thinking how John would look sitting in _this_ chair, standing by _that_ window. He picks up his violin and plays it, trying to calm the peculiar sense of _someone is missing_ , and realises he hasn’t played for John yet. He wants to. He wants to play music for John, wrap John up in the notes that were so often his only solace until… was it only three days ago? He wants to play music to the song that is John Watson until John drifts off to sleep, here in the flat. He wants John to know exactly how John makes him feel and he suspects his music may be the only way to really, fully convey the multitudes of that feeling. Safe and adventurous; flying and anchored; free and sheltered. All of those things. And John isn’t here for Sherlock to tell him so.

John trams and walks alone to his terrace house in North Melbourne. Irene isn’t home. He showers, and remembers them both showering here this morning, the nights before that. He dresses for bed and regrets the cotton on his skin is not Sherlock’s hands. He distracts himself, working on a photo idea he’s had for a little while, and takes a selfie for it. He likes the end result, but he feels… unfinished. Not the art. He, himself is unfinished, or rather, _incomplete_. He tidies up, locks up, feeling the ghost at his elbow of the man who should be standing there. He feels the absence of Sherlock by his side like the space where he isn’t has **weight**.

Neither can sleep. They miss each other so much that they break almost simultaneously just before midnight, texting _Are you awake still?_

Relieved, they text for fifteen minutes about stupid things. NOthing at all. They just want to _connect_ again.

John takes another, more spontaneous selfie and sends it to Sherlock, and writes, _Send me one back_.

Sherlock sends one that looks serious. He’s wearing eyeglasses. Heavy black rims.

 _You look fantastic_ , texts John, _Didn’t know you wore glasses_.

_Only sometimes. When I’m tired._

_Send me your smile_ , writes John. _I miss it._

Sherlock sends another selfie, _sans_ glasses, and he’s grinning in it, a little shyly. Then he texts, May I see a self-portrait?

John considers the text. Sherlock doesn’t mean a selfie. He means the art. _How do you know I have any?_

_You take photos. You make art. You self-reflect in your work, but don’t show the work to anyone._

And then Sherlock texts, _I shouldn’t have asked. Don’t worry about it._

John replies, _I’ve just finished one. Just today. Today I had the right picture to finish it. Hang on._

He sends the picture, and then, _It’s called “Before Me, After You”._

Sherlock stares at it for a long time – the picture made up half of an earlier John in black and white, a sad and smaller John whose eyes don’t meet the lens, labelled Casualty and Invalid. But the second half of the picture is now-John, looking confidently through the lens and right into Sherlock’s eye, all colour and vibrancy and so alive and here and now. _After You._

At home, with no-one to see, Sherlock presses the image on the screen to the bridge of his nose, down to the tip, and tells himself only teenagers actually kiss photos of their sweethearts. He brushes his lips over it anyway and saves the picture.

Sherlock only realises he hasn’t replied when John sends him a question mark.

Sherlock phones John.

‘I love you,’ he says, and his voice catches.

‘I love you, too,’ says John, ‘God I love you. I miss you already. The photos are nice, but they’re not you.’

‘Hang on,’ says Sherlock. He has to deal with this surfeit of feeling somehow, and so he rushes towards the giddy joy, the silly hilarity. He takes a picture of his belly button and sends it to John.

John giggles when he gets it, and sends one back of his nipples.

Sherlock sends a picture of his toes.

He gets a picture of John licking his lips.

Sherlock manages to get in position by bending over in front of his mirror, and sends a shot of his bum.

In reply, he gets a shot of the crease where John’s thigh meets his torso. He must have spread his legs to take that one. There’s only a hint of pubic hair, and the skin looks delicate where the hair of his legs thins out.

It makes Sherlock hard, and this he tells to John, who confesses he’s more than half way there himself.

Skype is a wonderful thing, they decide, and they call and talk dirty and masturbate, telling each other what they’re doing, that they imagine the other doing it, and watch each other’s faces as they come.

They both decide to leave their phones on, leave Skype on. They each tuck their phone beside them on the pillow and then they listen to each other breathe until they fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about seeing a shop called Coin Laundry and then realising it was an ACTUAL coin laundry happened to me just the other day.
> 
> Here's [The Workshop Bar ](http://www.workshopbar.com.au/). We once bought art there at an exhibition.  
>   
> The nook they are probably canoodling in:  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> This is [Mr Burger](https://mrburger.com.au/).
> 
> John's self portrait will be the very next post.


End file.
